A Fun Day and Yummiest Lunch Ever

While having absolutely nothing to do with this post, my kid is adorable,
even when he's trying to shoot me :)  And no, I haven't been sending my
kids to fight club, he climbed up on a box and fell off and smacked his eye.

We had a fun day today, the kids decided that we needed to have a picnic, but I hadn't had time to make any "picnic" foods, so we went through the frig and grabbed some leftovers and a few bananas.  But first we had to sell milk and go to the gym and do some shopping.  So I worked out, the kids watched TV in the kids area, they have a great play area, but my silly TV deprived kids just think that stupid screen is the best thing in the world...  Oh well, they'll grow out of it, they had better :)  Then we did some running, by the health food store to pick up some Sea Snax, since I use sea salt I've been thinking I needed to eat some sort of sea vegetable to get iodine, and I noticed these were Whole 30 legal, so I grabbed a couple packs of the Toasty Onion.  And they are actually super yummy!  My kids even liked them, surprise, surprise.
While they were kinda pricy at 2.29 for .65oz, they're super nutritious and I figure since we don't spend any money on snacks and junk food, this is okay.  Then we ran by the grocery store to pick up some "light" olive oil.  I'd like to make some healthy mayonnaise and tried once before with extra virgin olive oil and I had to throw it out...  I hear this recipe is super delicious and it'd be nice to have on hand to make my own Ranch, something that's hard to live without in my house.  And then finally, to the park!!!  My kids beg to go to the park constantly, but we rarely do, I'm always ready to go home after being in town and don't want to be away any longer than necessary.  But since they brought a picnic I really didn't have a choice.  Our picnic consisted of leftover Faux Pumpkin Pie made out of butternut squash, leftover fried apples, 3 boiled eggs, bananas, and our new Sea Snax.  All it all it was a pretty good picnic, the kids got to play in the river, well, the puddles in the river bed, and had a blast exploring among all the weeds that have grown up 6 feet tall in the river bed.  There hasn't been a river there all year because of the drought, pretty sad.  Ender had fallen asleep on the way there and slept through it all, poor boy.  I had the kindle book Public Schools, Public Menace on my Iphone as it was free a while ago, so I sat in the grass and read it while they played.  I only got a bit into it but he has some good points, not that he has to convince me about the horror that is public school, but it definitely has some convincing arguments.   I'd recommend reading it, though not for 18.00 as it is now.  So then we headed home, of course by now I was starving as it was 2:00 and I'm always hungry after working out, I didn't end up with much of the "picnic" as the kids consumed most of it.

So I looked for a quick and healthy lunch, there was a bunch of green beans in the refrigerator that had been there a while and needed to be eaten, plus a chicken breast with the same story.  I have never liked green beans as I have never found a great recipe for them.  Mom can make good green beans, but I fail every time.  So I googled "whole 30 green beans" in hopes of finding an awesome recipe.  And I did!!!    I think I'm in love with this blog as well as Everyday Paleo, they both just have such amazing delicious recipes.  These were so good, incredibly good, like I ate three times what I was planning to eat.  I knew I needed protein as well, but didn't have much time as I forgot to get around to cooking the chicken until the green beans were done, so I took the chicken breast, ripped the bones out, slapped it between two of those sweet thin plastic cutting boards, and beat it to death with my meat tenderizer hammer.  Then I sprinkled it with salt and pepper and threw it in an iron skillet with a couple tablespoons coconut oil, as thin as it was it only took about 5-6 minutes to cook, and was perfect to go along with the beans.  I think I'm going to make everything with a coconut milk sauce from now on, the last two days I've cooked with coconut milk and it's just absolutely to die for.   I almost licked the plate, now I have another quick and easy and delicious recipe to fall back on when I'm pulling my hair out trying to find something to cook...  Well, I guess it will only work if I have chicken dethawed and green beans available.  Hmm, maybe I need to run back up to the farm and buy a bunch more green beans and freeze them.  Previously I was like green beans, meh, who needs them, now I'm like green beans, I need my green beans, gimme some green beans, can't run out of green beans.  Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but it'd sure be nice to have some on hand.

Banana Walnut Muffins, Grain Free Sandwich Bread, and more Butternut Squash!

We basically eat pancakes or waffles every morning, I love to make a big batch and eat them over the next few days, but sometimes I want something new.  I had several over ripe bananas so I decided to make muffins.  I'm also tired of never having anything to take as a snack in town, then I have to deal with constant whining "I'm hungry" every time we're stuck in town.  So I hit the computer this morning and found a recipe that sounded good, Paleo Banana Walnut Muffins.  The batch made 18 muffins, I'll probably double it next time, my kids can go through that in a day.  They were awesome with a dab of homemade butter, there were only five left after breakfast and snacking before lunch.

We managed to get a bit of school work done today before I ran out of patience, neither child was cooperating very well, actually all three of them were uncooperative.  So I kicked them outside and went back to decluttering, I spent the entire evening yesterday getting rid of stuff after flipping out over a messy house.  At least flipping out turned into something useful :)   I got one garbage bag full of clothes gone, a box of shoes, a changing table that I've had for 6 years and never used for anything other than to pile stuff on, even our TV and VCR!!!  We would pull that stupid thing, 19" 15 year old thing, out of the closet about once a year to watch a movie, totally not worth the space.  If we want to watch something we have the computer, of course that means my poor husband can't watch any of his VHS's, not that he does that anyway, like I said, maybe once a year.  Anyways, I went back to finding stuff to clear out and get rid of, I'm on a mission to build a school area, I want some sort of a kids desk with lots of shelves.  I've got somewhat of a picture in mind but am not sure where to start, I guess I need to take some measurements and head to Lowes.   I managed to clear out a corner in our back room, this is a super duper multipurpose room, it's got my 4x8' fabric cutting table plus a massive amount of fabric, the crib, probably 100' of loaded bookshelves, and the master closet with all our clothes.  I neglected to mention this is the master bedroom that I moved us out of several years ago into a tiny room so I could put the big room to use...  I need more room, badly!!!  Oh well, I just have to declutter some more, and some more, and some more.  And then organize!  Not my strong points at all, I love throwing stuff away, but then I get in trouble, since my husband likes his stuff, and so do my kids.  I was carrying out a kiddo chair thing to stick it in the car to go to the thrift store and massive amounts of tears erupted, I finally said they could take it to their tree house, where it will get ruined and then eventually I'll burn it, probably when they go off to college...  Oh well, at least it's out of my house.   Then it was time to cook lunch.  Have you ever noticed your life is broken up into "wake up, clean house, cook food, clean house, cook food, clean house, cook food, clean house, go to bed"?

That pretty much seems like my life, I need a slave, one of these days I'm getting a slave...  Okay, technically not a slave, but maid/housekeeper/cook /nanny/masseuse/hairdresser.  Anyone want to apply?  I think my husband needs a 2nd wife, the mail order type that's used to working hard for little to nothing.  Anyways, that was me off on another tangent, happens quite a bit around here if you haven't noticed.  I made some more super delicious Butternut Squash Cakes for lunch, I doubled the batch this time so there will be some leftovers for supper.  Then I made a loaf of Grain Free Sandwich Bread, which didn't turn out as nice as hers but was definitely edible.


I also put my last butternut squash in the oven with the bread so I could make it into a Faux-Pumpkin Pie later, I'm now in love with butternut squash, it's just so versatile, I've got to go get a bunch more and find more yummy recipes.










Then I decided since the kids are in their room for quiet time, I get dessert! Some blueberry ice cream that I made yesterday, and no I'm not going to eat it all, that's just what I scraped all the leftovers out of the ice cream maker into.  Well, I "might" not eat the whole bowl, we'll see.  This froze much better than the previous ice cream, the addition of frozen blueberries gave it that extra chill to freeze somewhat firm.  I did forget to put eggs in it, that's frustrating, I love putting raw eggs in ice cream for that wonderful added boost of nutrition.  It also makes it creamier.

Now after all that cooking my kitchen needs cleaning, you can see all the clutter in the background of my pictures, unless you were too nice to notice.  But heck with that, I'm going to go chill on the couch and read for a bit and maybe take a nap, then I'll clean later.  Procrastination for the win!  Or loss...

Grain Free Tortillas, Mint Choc Chip Ice Cream, and Home Schooling

Picture from Nourished and Nurtured

I was perusing the internet, as I do more than I should each day, I've got to put a limit on myself, someday... But I did find a neat blog with some great recipes, Nourished and Nurtured.  I made her tortilla recipe for lunch and made quesadillas with cheese and tomatoes, and guacamole on the side.  They turned out so super yummy!  I loved the addition of cumin, dried onions, and garlic to the batter, that just did the trick, else I'm afraid they wouldn't have been so good, but then who knows, I bet they'd be great with some cream cheese and fruit for a treat.  Frying them in butter also helped, pretty much you can fry anything in butter and it's going to be good.  Of course, as usual, we ate them all before I got around to taking a pic, they were just too dang good!  Even Chris liked them, which is saying something, he's kinda iffy about my weirder grain free baking.  So I guess that means this isn't too weird.

What her's looks like 

Lately I've been reading how ice cream has basically the same macronutrient ratios as breast milk, great excuse to make ice cream, not that I need an excuse.  And I still had two gallons of milk in the frig from last Wednesday that needed to be used, so I skimmed the cream for ice cream, and turned the rest into Mozzarella.  Skim milk mozz isn't as good as whole milk, but I figure with pesto it'll still be good.  Other option was to feed it to the chickens, but this way we get cheese and the chickens get the whey, so everyone/thing wins.  The tortilla recipe called for egg whites, so I used just the yolks in the ice cream, which made it so super awesomely rich.  I did about 3 cups cream, 1 cup milk, 6 egg yolks, two tablespoons raw sugar, I should have used honey but there's just a little bit left in the bottom of a one gallon jug and it's a pain to dig out.  Plus a touch of stevia, vanilla, and peppermint flavoring.  Oh holy cow it's good!  Maybe not near as pretty as hers, but it's certainly edible :)

What mine looks like...

I don't know how people get their ice cream to freeze so nicely...  My ice cream maker is awesome, but it pretty much is always ice cream soup.  Maybe because I overfill it every time, the silly thing only holds 1 quart, which isn't near enough!









On the kid/homeschooling side of life, also on Nourished and Nurtured, she has some homeschooling recommendations, one of which is a great, and free, phonics resource Progressive Phonics.  You can print phonics learning material for all different levels, and they are fun and entertaining, not the typical "bore you out of your mind" phonics readers.  I printed off the first intermediate book for Ari and we did the first several pages, Tell sat with us and picked up some as well.  He's really picking reading up fast, better than Ari that's for sure, thankfully, if I had to fight as hard with him as I do with her I think I would give up.  We're working through the same book, Phonics Pathways, with both of them, Tell is doing 2-3 pages a day and I have to fight to get through one with Ari, I'm hoping when he catches up to her maybe she'll start feeling the competition and straighten out.   If anyone has any great home school recommendations I'd love to hear them, right now we're doing The Well Trained Mind and whatever they recommend, I'm liking that style of teaching, at least what I've read so far.  Since we're just in K/1st and preschool right now it's pretty simple, I know it's going to get harder and I'm not looking forwards to it :)

Oven fried okra and eggplant no-parmesan

I got around to starting supper rather late, thankfully my husband was also running late at work so it wasn't too bad.  I had tons of veggies in the frig that needed to be used, plus my bag of okra in the freezer was finally full!  So I made Eggplant Parmesan, only to find out that I was out of Parmesan, oh well, no big deal, I can manage.  I dipped the eggplant in olive oil, then in a mix of almond flour, garlic powder, dried onion flakes, Italian seasoning, and salt. I didn't measure anything, who does that anymore anyway?  Then I laid them out on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven to cook.  Then I chopped up a ton of okra, threw it in a bag with the rest of the eggplant breading, spread it out on another cookie sheet and threw it in the oven as well.

A bit of cheese?  Well, it didn't look like so much before hand...

After about 15-20 minutes, the eggplant looked done so I took it out, put a bit of tomato sauce in the bottom of a 13x9 baking dish, layered the slices in the dish, slopped some more tomato sauce on top, and sprinkled a bit of cheese to top it off.  This could easily be made dairy free, just skip the cheese, but we like cheese and haven't any dairy allergies, thankfully!  I also got out some pork chops to thaw, but I don't know if I'm going to get around to making them, probably put them in a marinade and use them tomorrow.

The okra turned out good, I got tired of waiting and it wasn't crunchy, but certainly edible!  The kids love this and eat the heck out of it.  A good thing since they are picky about the eggplant.











Picnic time!  Did we forget something.... Oh, ya, clothes!  Oh well, we don't believe in clothes here, didn't you know?  Actually, they had decided to splash in the pool and stripped for that, then of course they didn't get around to redressing, who needs clothes anyway.  God didn't make us with clothes on!

A super duper great day, and Zucchini Bread.

I woke up early this morning and have just had the best day, I got cows milked, kitchen cleaned, and floors swept and mopped by 9 AM.  Before you start to think I'm Miss Betsy Homemaker or something, note that this has never happened before and is unlikely to happen again.  Then while my kids cleaned their room, I got school stuff together, then we sat down and did our schoolwork.  (This is beginning to sound like a pleasant dream, it's actually not, I swear)  That went relatively smoothly, with not even a tear, again not the usual, Ari has a hate relationship going on with her Phonics book.  Then I chased the kids outside, nicely, no I'm not an abusive mother, and then I proceeded to make two batches of cheese, one of mozzarella, and one of paneer.  

Then I went out to the garden and picked a massive amount of basil, my plants are absolutely huge and beautiful.  Anyone need basil, or bell peppers?  I'd almost forgotten about the pepper plants as they've not really produced the last couple months, but I guess the cooler weather and rain has worked miracles, they were loaded.  Plus a very few little tomatoes and some okra. I get about that much okra every couple of days, not enough to eat, so I throw it into a gallon freezer bag in the freezer and when the bag is full I cook up a mess of yummy okra!  I've only had enough for about 4 batches this year, and it's so good, I'm planting 4 times as many plants next year.

And then I made a huge batch of pesto, yum!  I love fresh pesto and mozzarella, I just wish the tomato plants were bearing, I got a couple tomatoes, I can't decide whether to eat them or to save them for my husband.  He really likes pesto, cheese, and tomatoes, maybe I'll be nice and save them, I'm pretty stuffed right now with just snacking on the cheese as I was making it.  Next I got started on a double batch of zucchini bread, my kids have been wanting something special and I haven't made anything for ages, plus I've got a bunch of zucchini from the garden up the road.  I made some of it into Cheesy Surprises last night to eat with pork steak, from our freshly butchered pigs, oh super yummy goodness.  Speaking of pigs, I'm way past due for a post about them, I managed to not get around to doing it when they were alive, maybe I'll do one now that they're in the freezer.

And now, I'm worn out and I think it's nap time, though it's only 12:40, the kids are still outside playing so nicely.  I have such cooperative kids, they only come to the door occasionally to ask to be let back in and I just have to say "nope, no way, go away" and they are off again for another hour or so.  (I'm not actually that mean, or am I?)  I did give them peaches and a watermelon to eat to keep them happy, so I guess I'm not too terribly mean.

Here's the recipe for the zucchini bread, it was delicious.  Make sure to squeeze out the excess liquid, I grate it into a thin towel/piece of cloth, then wring it out as good as I could.  This is actually a double batch, so you can half it if you like.  I just had a ton of zucchini to use up.  And it's a good thing I did because we ate over half of it in basically one sitting.

Grain Free Zucchini Bread
1 cup almond flour
1 cup coconut flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
6 eggs
1/4 cup coconut oil
6 tbs honey
1 tsp vanilla
stevia if you think it needs it
2 cups or so of shredded zucchini,
with water squeezed out
1 cup or so chopped walnuts (opt.) (I forgot to add nuts, wish I had)

Grease a couple mini loaf pans, and/or some muffin tins, I don't have any mini pans and I ended up with one big loaf and 12 muffins.  Bake for 25 minutes for muffins, 35 for mini loaf, about 50 for full size loaf.


Most of it got eaten before I could remember to snap a picture.

A few recipes and a King Snake

I've made a bunch of delicious things over the past few days so I figured I'd just do a recipe post, plus a few pics of a couple massive King Snake's that I've caught in the eggmobile lately.  This one had a cool orangey red belly.  The other was the biggest I've seen, it was as long as I was.  And I've decided that my camera hates my husband, it never takes decent pictures for him...

This one managed to bite me, the jerk!  Though it was my fault, I was trying to grab my camera with the same hand that was holding his head and he managed to latch down on my finger, man that hurt!  They have bunches of little tiny needle sharp teeth that curve backwards, so getting him detached wasn't easy.  I hauled them down the road a couple miles and dropped them off next to an old cow barn, I imagine they'll find plenty of mice in there.











And now to food, the best part!!!
My freezer is full of blueberries and we're fixing to butcher a couple pigs and a bull, so I needed to use them. And I was getting tired of the same ol' same ol' for breakfast so I decided to make something special.  It turned out absolutely delicious, I ate two bowlfuls and then helped the kids finish theirs off.  And then I started thinking about how I've been eating way too much fruit, as I chopped up 4 gallons of peaches to put in the freezer.  This time of year is awesome, but I've got ulcers on my tongue saying, "stop with the fruit already!!!"
Even though I had my camera sitting right beside the oven, I still forgot to take pictures... Oh well, take my word for it, it's as beautiful as it is delicious :)

Blueberry Crisp
4 cups ripe blueberries
1/2 t. cinnamon
1 cup blanched almond flour (store-bought or homemade)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
1/4 cup raw honey
Preheat oven to 350F.
Rinse blueberries well, then place them in the 2-quart baking dish. Sprinkle cinnamon on top.
Mix almond flour with sea salt and baking soda in a large bowl, until well mixed. Stir in the unsweetened shredded coconut and walnuts. Melt the coconut oil, in a small pan over low heat, (heck with that, my house never gets below 76 this time of year, my coconut oil is always liquid) then add the honey to just barely melt the honey enough to mix it in. Stir the melted mixture into the almond flour mixture until well-blended, then crumble the almond flour mixture over the berries.
Bake for about 30 minutes until topping is golden brown.

Tomato Zucchini Casserole

This is ridiculously good, I ate so much I could hardly move afterwards.  This is a perfect meal to use up the abundance of tomatoes and zucchini everyone has this time of year.  Speaking of tomatoes, the garden up the hill from me is over run with tomatoes and he just posted on FB that he'll deliver for free.  So if your in need of a bunch of tomatoes to put up check them out, their organic (not in the government sense of the word, but in the real sense of the word) too, and only $1.00 a pound. Of course they have many other yummy veggies as well.  Check them out on FB http://www.facebook.com/upickitfarmgarden.winslowar

1 1/2 cups grated Cheddar cheese
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano or a bunch of fresh
1/2 teaspoon dried basil or a bunch of fresh
2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
salt and pepper to taste
2 medium zucchinis, thinly sliced
5 plum tomatoes, thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly butter a 9x9-inch pan.
In a large bowl, combine Cheddar, Parmesan, oregano, basil, garlic, and onions. Season with salt and pepper, and set aside.
Arrange half of the zucchini slices in the pan. Sprinkle 1/4 of the cheese and herb mixture on top. Arrange half of the tomatoes, and top with another 1/4 of the cheese mixture. Repeat layers.
Bake in a preheated oven for about 45 minutes.

I actually remembered to take pictures of this one, though I was a little late on the "finished" shot.

Pineapple Banana Pie

A super quick and easy yummy desert/snack/breakfast, I used to make this all the time when I was a kid, then I forgot about it until today when my brother emailed me and asked for the recipe.  I used to use a graham cracker crust, instead I made an almond flour crust, which turned out delicious and tasted almost the same.

1 can crushed pineapple (or fresh if your so lucky as to have one)

3 super ripe banana's

Slice banana's and dump into a sauce pan with the pineapple, simmer for a few minutes til it starts to thicken a bit.  Stick it in the freezer to chill, or fridge if your not in a hurry.

Mix 1.5 cups almond flour

3 tbs melted butter (or coconut oil)

a touch of stevia or a bit of honey

1 tsp cinnamon

Press into a pie pan and stick in the oven for about 10 minutes, then stick it in the freezer or fridge to chill.  Once everything's cool dump the filling into the crust and enjoy!  You can also throw some shredded coconut on top, though for some reason I prefer it without.

Our mini-vacation

Tell building a trap with his hot dog stick,
 I think he's planning on catching a deer with it

This last Sun/Mon we decided to take off and head down to Ft Smith State Park to go camping and boating and fishing, something that my kids have been begging to do for close to a year now and we've kept putting them off.  Plus it was Tell's 4th birthday, another great excuse!  I'd gone down to milking once a day last week, the dry weather and lack of grass has made the cow's production drop so much that it just wasn't worth the hassle of twice a day milking. So that helped free us up to get out of here for 24 hours.  We packed up the entire house and then some, or it seemed like it, we 
also bought a bunch of "camping food" at Aldi's, which meant splurges on junk food that we normally don't eat, marshmallows, chips, hot dogs, etc.  But Chris says it's camping and therefore okay.  We got there about 6pm Sunday, set up the tent and then headed down to the lake to paddle around and swim.  According to the signs, swimming is not allowed in the lake, but us lawbreakers did it anyway.  We just paddled to the opposite side of the lake, away from anyone who would care, and swam to our hearts content.  



The girls chased Chris around in the canoe trying to catch him, while he pushed them under with his paddle when they got close, Kayli didn't mind being dunked but Ari cried.  Toughen up girl!













Birthday boy, I made the most delicious cake ever, but of course no one took a picture of it, it was sinfully delicious, and sinfully unhealthy...  Recipe at the bottom for those of you who are in need of something sinfully delicious and unhealthy :

We found a beach type area with tons of little clam shells, the kids collected a bunch to bring home. Which are now spread out all over my porch, at least I managed to keep them outside, the last thing I need is hundreds of sandy clam shells all over my house.

There were some really neat caves in the cliff on one side of the lake, the 2nd time we went out there were a couple young buzzards hanging out, I wanted to climb up and try to find their nest but we didn't.  They were pretty easy going, we managed to get super close before they flew away.












And yes, my husband isn't so great with the camera, out of like 200 pictures, only about 10 of them are any good.  Though I am thankful he took them, if it weren't for him we probably wouldn't have had any pictures at all.

Ender enjoying his cake, I forgot to bring plates or silverware, not that the kids cared, cups and hands work just fine.  And yes, he's naked, anyone surprised?  There wasn't anyone around to care, we had that end of the campground to ourselves thankfully.

















Really Good Chocolate Cake
1 3/4 cup almond flour
1/3 cup coconut flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2/3 cup butter, softened 
2 cups plain, unsweetened yogurt
1 cup honey ( I cut it down a bit and used some stevia as well)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
(I also totally cheated and dumped some chocolate chips in there to make it super duper good)


 Do I really need to tell you how to put it together?  Throw it all into a bowl, mix it up, grease up a 9x13 dish or whatever, dump in the cake batter, stick it in the oven on 350 or whatever, cook til done.  Around 30 minutes if you are so disciplined as to set a timer.


Cream Cheese Coffee Icing
Two packages cream cheese
Honey and stevia to taste
couple teaspoons instant coffee

Mix it all up and spread it on top of the cake once it cools off.  I like coffee icing on a chocolate cake, it's just so good.

Carrot Cake and Sweet Potato Fries

This is going to be a food post as I've not had the forethought to take my camera with me when I go down to do the chickens in my brand new awesome eggmobile, look for that post coming soon :)

    So this morning I was low on energy and not feeling like doing much, I worked out yesterday, and spent half the day in town, which always wipes me out.  So I decided some yummy food might perk me up, I made a carrot cake out of my favorite recipe.  It's not so smart to make cake this early in the day, there might not be any left by the time my husband gets home...  Oh well, I'll make sure not to pig out too much.  To help prevent too much overeating of cake, I'm making Sweet Potato Fries, one of my favorite foods ever.  I've never liked sweet potatoes, until about 6 months ago, I had some that needed to be eaten, and I tried a fry recipe.  Now I eat them like candy, they are so super good.

Slice up your sweet potatoes, I prefer to peel them just because most pesticides and chemicals are in the outer layer, and these are not organic unfortunately.  Then throw them in a bowl, splash olive oil generously over them, then sprinkle (douse) them with paprika, chili powder, and salt.

Stir them up and spread on a heavily greased baking sheet, if you don't grease it you'll have stuck fries.  Bake on 400 or so until they are done, usually I take them out when the little ones are nice and crispy, and I try to stir them once or twice.  Right now mine are baking at 350 because they are in with the cake, which means it's going to take longer and I'm starving...


Meanwhile, my older two are swimming in the pool, they wish...  They've been begging me for a pool but I'm too cheap, um, thrifty, to buy them one.  So they make do with what they've got.










And then the baby, who loves anything with an edge, or anything that can cause blunt trauma, or anything with a motor, is "helping" chop sweet potatoes.  For a while every time I turned my back he would remove all the knives from the silverware drawer and play with them.  I had to put them all up in a high cabinet to keep them away from him.  He's pretty careful with them, well, at least he never stabbed himself and he still has all his fingers.

And then, finally, time to eat!  Of course I was too busy stuffing my face to take a picture, only when my stomach started urgently signalling me to stop eating did I think of the camera.  Here's the leftovers, not very much left out of a three pound bag of sweet potatoes.  We did also finish off the Venison Stew, we didn't just eat sweet potatoes, that wouldn't have been a very balanced meal.  Though actually the cake has a dozen eggs in it so really I guess the meal would have been decently balanced just with the fries and the cake.  And the cake was oh so terribly good, thankfully I was pretty full already, else I would have probably eaten myself sick

Yum!

And now for the recipes, I know you've been waiting patiently for this part.


Sweet Potato Fries (probably would serve 6 normal people)
3# bag of Sweet Potatoes
1/4 cup EV Olive Oil
2 tsp Chili Powder
1 1/2 tsp Paprika
1 tsp salt or to taste
 Peel potatoes if they are not organic and slice into fries. Mix the olive oil and spices in a bowl then drizzle on top of the potatoes, stir til coated then spread out on a greased baking sheet.  Bake at 400 for 30 minutes or until done, stir and flip them over about halfway thru.


Coconut Flour Carrot Cake
1 cup sifted coconut flour
½ cup butter, melted
½ cup milk, coconut or whole
12 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup honey
¼ tsp stevia or to taste
¾ teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 ½ cups finely grated carrot
½ cup nuts, chopped
1/2 cup raisins (opt)
Combine butter, milk, eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix together sugar, salt and spices. Stir into wet mixture. Combine coconut flour with baking powder and whisk into batter until there are no lumps. Fold in carrots and nuts. Pour batter equally into 2 greased 8 or 9x1½ inch layer cake pans or one 9x9x2 inch pan. Bake at 350 degree’s for 35-40 minutes or until knife inserted into center comes out clean. Cool.

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz cold cream cheese
5 tbs unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla
¼ cup honey
Stevia to taste
Beat and add additional sweetener until it reaches the taste and consistency you want.

Drag princesses and gardening

My son found some of his sister's dress up clothes and decided to try them on, this is the outcome.

I'm so beautiful

Oops, Cinderella lost her, um, his shoe

So then big sis had to get in on the fun and picture taking, the dress up clothes were a Christmas gift two years ago, they fit him better than they do her.

After the ball, with a bit of a hangover

Enough of adorable children...  Did you know that you could regrow celery!?!?!?!?  Organic celery costs close to $4.00 a bunch, and we can go through half a bunch just making Ants on a Log.  So I'm trying it out, the first time my celery had been in the frig a month, and then after I planted it the chickens dug it up twice and the dog once.  It tried to grow, but needless to say it failed miserably.  So I'm trying again, this one is taking off admirably well, I need to get it planted in the garden today, hopefully somewhere where the chickens can't get at it.  I did try to plant celery from seed this year, but it didn't make it, I planted it too late and didn't water it enough.  It seems to be rather delicate, I'll have to start earlier next year, and take better care of it.

One of the first "fruits" of my garden, besides greens, snow peas!  Of course, I could have been picking this a month ago, but I didn't get them planted as early as I should.  Now I need to find a good recipe for snow peas, I'm not a big fan of Chinese food, and that seems to be the main way to cook them.  I did find an Indian recipe for Potato's and Snow Peas, your supposed to use normal peas, not pod peas, but I don't care, I'm going to try it anyway.  This is the recipe I'm planning to try http://www.food.com/recipe/aaloo-mattar-indian-style-peas-and-potatoes-158223  

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Speaking of greens, here's my Kale, Collards, and Spinach.

And here's what they turn into: 

Saag Paneer

Chop up an onion and cook in butter
Chop up 3-4 cloves garlic and some fresh ginger and add to cooking onion
Add 1 1/2 tsp Cumin
1 1/2 tsp Coriander
1 tsp Curry
1/4 tsp Cayenne (if your kids aren't eating)
Stir that up then add a pound or so of greens.  Cook til wilted and tender.

Make this first, preferably a couple hours before hand. Dump a gallon or two of milk into a big pot, heat to 190 or so, dump in 1/2 cup or so white vinegar or lemon juice.  Stir until it's all separated into curds and whey.  Pour it all into some cheesecloth, stir in a tablespoon of salt or so and hang to drain.  Then chop into cubes and fry in butter.

Mix it all together and stuff your face!